Comments on charging capacity, headlight voltage, etc

[Gearhead]

Hello,

 

Over the last few months I added a pair of 55W driving lights and later heated grips which draw about 3 amps. I started having some battery-drain problems after the grips. Some testing last weekend confirmed that it seems the stock charging system is OK but pretty well maxed out with the lights, and the grips push it over the edge. It's OK under some conditions, but sometimes the voltage just won't go over 12.7 or so with all of it turned on. As I mentioned last week, I want to install LED's in the two front clearance lights and one of the brake light sockets to get back 1.7 amps.

 

Also, I was dissatisfied with the fact that the headlight was getting 2 volts less than the system; with the bike charging at 14V the light only got 12V. This has a direct effect on brightness. As I had done on my Virago, a while back I installed relays for low and high beam to send battery power right to the light and bypass all the factory wiring, switches and connectors. I was rudely awakened to the fact that the Venture's lighting system was smarter than me and didn't like that. Last weekend I settled for gaining back some of that voltage. I installed one relay in the L/B wire to the RLU (check manual for explanation). Bike side of L/B activates my relay, and RLU side of that wire gets power from the relay. Relay draws power from battery - almost - explanation below. This bypasses the ignition and start switches, and gained about .8V.

 

Finally, I had been powering relays off the batt pos post. However, looking at the diagrams, the factory setup puts the main 40A fuse right off the battery, then everything else after that. The highest voltage when running won't be at the battery but rather at the charging system with the main fuse being a potential source of voltage drop (minor point). At any rate, I decided it was more sound electrically to power any relays just downstream of the main fuse.

 

My 2 cents :-)

 

Jeremy